It’s Not in the Cards Again for the Galaxy
WASHINGTON — That hole the Galaxy is digging for itself grew several feet deeper Friday night, just as the pile of excuses alongside it grew several feet taller.
Once again, the Galaxy lost a Major League Soccer game. Nothing new there.
Once again, fingers were pointed at missing players, at poor officiating, at missed chances. Nothing different about that.
Once again, Coach Lothar Osiander found himself on the ropes, trying to fend off criticism from above and below. Nothing but more of the same is likely.
Friday night’s 2-0 loss to Washington D.C. United in front of an RFK Stadium crowd of 21,424 highlighted the gulf that has appeared between the teams since they met in the MLS championship game last fall.
Both teams have stayed with pretty much the same players, but whereas D.C. United has matured as a team, the Galaxy has slipped backward.
As a result, Osiander was left trying to block sharp questions with one-liners in the aftermath of another defeat.
“Any comments?” Osiander was asked.
“I have a good-looking girlfriend,” he replied. “She’s also 25 years younger than I am. That’s a good comment.”
“You’re digging yourself a fair-sized hole,” it was suggested.
“And I hear footsteps too,” Osiander shot back.
“What seems to be the problem?”
“Well, I don’t know. I thought we had everything planned out rather well. We would have had a hard time with 11, but with 10 it was almost impossible.”
The reference was to Chris Armas’ ejection in the 24th minute after a foul on United’s John Maessner. It was an innocuous foul, but referee Raul Dominguez immediately red-carded the Galaxy midfielder, apparently mistaking him for Brad Wilson, who had earned a yellow card 10 minutes earlier.
That left the Galaxy playing a man short for more than an hour, and with the Bolivian World Cup duo of Marco “El Diablo” Etcheverry and Jaime Moreno on the opposing team, it was a monumental mismatch.
Moreno ended up with two goals, his fifth and sixth. Etcheverry could have scored a pair himself, but one free kick in the 23rd minute banged off the crossbar and another in the 52nd minute rebounded off the right post.
Other chances also went begging for United, which controlled the game throughout.
But both coaches admitted that the red card was the turning point in the game.
“D.C. is a solid team,” Osiander said. “You’re not going to win playing a man down.”
As for the red card on Armas, Osiander wasn’t talking.
“I have an opinion, yes,” he said. “But I’d get fined [by the league] and I’ve paid enough fines.”
Galaxy captain Dan Calichman made his opinion known on the field, rushing up to Dominguez, bumping the referee with his chest and yelling at him in no uncertain terms.
D.C. United Coach Bruce Arena was not going to be drawn into the controversy, but was not reluctant to talk about Moreno.
The forward scored for the fifth game in a row, one short of the MLS record, when he slammed home a penalty kick after Calichman had impeded Etcheverry in the penalty area in the 38th minute.
In the 80th minute, Moreno latched onto a perfect through pass from Etcheverry, rounded Galaxy goalkeeper David Kramer, whose defense had abandoned him, and steered the ball into the open net.
“Jaime has had better nights,” Arena said. “He was a little too casual on the ball. He did a sloppy job in the beginning of the second half in keeping the ball for us. Yet Jaime on a night when he’s not at his best is still one of the best forwards in this league.
“He’s a threat at all times and he makes us a better team because he’s one of the few forwards in this league who can go at people, who can hold the ball and can run the way he can run. He’s a dangerous player.”
Exactly the sort of player the Galaxy needs.
